IU board plans special meeting on Herbert

Question at issue -- whether to respond to faculty complaints about president.

Question at issue -- whether to respond to faculty complaints about president.

December 10, 2005

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The Indiana University Board of Trustees will not decide until next month whether to review President Adam Herbert's leadership of the school, its president said Friday. Faculty members at IU's Bloomington campus voted 754-229 last month to back a resolution asking for the special review. Professors have complained that Herbert has not been accessible since he became president in 2003 and have criticized how he handled the search for a new Bloomington campus chancellor. Despite the criticism, Herbert said Friday he's focused on his job. "I'm not going to second guess myself right now," he said. "Every decision I've made since I've been here has been made in the best interest of Indiana University." Trustees President Stephen Ferguson said at the start of the board's first public meeting since the faculty vote that the trustees would have a special meeting Jan. 14 in Bloomington to discuss the review request. "We have more people to engage in discussion over the next few weeks," he said. "It would be premature for the board to act today when there are still people to be heard from." The trustees listened to faculty Friday during closed sessions. Bart Hg, a professor at IUPUI who is a member of the University Faculty Council, called discussions between faculty and the trustees "fruitful." "We would welcome more conversations and we stand ready to work collaboratively with the board," he said. The trustees, to whom Herbert reports, have been supportive of him. "I think it would be a mistake to believe there's been an outcry," said Pat Shoulders, the vice president of the university's board of trustees. "We haven't had any other outcry from an IU campus." Still, trustees said they're taking the faculty complaints seriously. The board last month unanimously approved a resolution backing Herbert's decision to reopen the search for a new chancellor for IU's 38,000-student main campus. The top administrative position has been filled on an interim basis for two years by Ken Gros Louis, who had retired from the job in 2001. Trustees said the search for a new chancellor continues, but it could be hampered by the recent controversy. "It is somewhat difficult to attract an external candidate into a situation where serious questions have been raised about the description of the job we would have that person perform," Shoulders said.